


Right Here

by Roche715



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Episode: s07e07 Orison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roche715/pseuds/Roche715
Summary: The soft thud of her duffle bag hitting the floor marks their arrival at her apartment. It’s been a little over a week since Donnie Pfaster tore through the space.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	Right Here

**Author's Note:**

> **trigger warning for panic attacks**

The soft thud of her duffle bag hitting the floor marks their arrival at her apartment. It’s been a little over a week since Donnie Pfaster tore through the space. In the days since, he had made sure to get everything squared away and proper, knowing that she would want to return sooner rather than later. Debris had been removed, floors cleaned, furniture moved back into place.

Even with all evidence gone, Mulder had his worries about her return to her home. He’d sometimes wondered how and if she ever really felt safe here, a space that had been violated time and time again by abductors and murderers and death, and that was before this last attack had happened. His own home had seen its fair share of horrors, but the ghosts that hung around his residence were nowhere near as personal as the ghosts that hung around Scully’s apartment.

“I’m just going to go take a quick shower, okay?” The smile she gives him is small, but any concern he might be feeling is lessened by the way her features are calm. He knew all the places she kept tension – her eyebrows, her shoulders, her lips—and all are relaxed.

“I’ll start making lunch?” A grocery bag is held up, full of cold cuts and vegetables.

“Sure.” Even under her small weight, the floorboards squeak as she moves deeper into the apartment.

Spilling out the contents of the bag on her kitchen counter, Mulder turns to the sink, letting his mind wander as he rinses the vegetables under cold water. Not for the first time today, he reflects on everything that had happened since she had last been in here a week ago. The car ride to his apartment the night of the attack had been quiet, not exactly uncomfortable - silence between them hardly ever was - but definitely bleak. She had been distant that first night, presumably ruminating on the thoughts voiced to him earlier that night, thinking about her decision to kill and the consequences of that action. He wouldn’t claim to know more about her emotional processing, other than that she was happy when she smiled (one of her real smiles, not the grimaces she pasted on following an ‘I’m fine’), but he knew from experience that she liked to isolate after going through something traumatic, emotionally if not physically. He had understood her distance, quietly keeping an eye on her but giving her the space she needed to process what had happened. 

Her disposition hadn’t changed on arrival, or after she emerged from his bathroom after a long shower, but he’d been optimistic about her mental state after she climbed into bed with him, nestling snugly into his side to doze off almost instantly.

It turned out he was too rash in his judgment of how she was coping. On the second night, he had awoken to her panicked thrashing, seemingly deep in a terrifying nightmare. After waking her and calming her, he had tried to coax her into talking. Asking her for details about the dream and details about how she was feeling. She had resisted, claiming that she was okay, but the way she had clung to him betrayed her level of fright. Not wanting to push her too much, he had let it go and they fell back into slumber.

The next few days had passed mostly uneventful, and she seemed to be doing fine. Even as he noticed that she was quieter and more reserved than usual, she was open with him in a way that gave him hope that she was managing whatever she was feeling well. She hadn’t hidden away the damage from him. The dark purple and black bruises that covered her body from head to toe and the lacerations from broken shards of mirror on her hands and knees and back. She also hadn’t hidden away the pain, moving in the way that betrayed the soreness that must be flowing through every part of her body.

The plan was for her to return to work tomorrow on desk duty for a few more days for healing (mandated by Skinner against her wishes), and so it was decided that she would return to her apartment today. 

So lost in thought, he only realizes that he never heard the shower turn on halfway through chopping tomatoes. The base of his neck tingles with dread as he walks out of the kitchen to the living room.

Rounding the corner, the fear that was simmering before turns into full blow alarm. Back flattened against the wall, she is crouched beside her bedroom doorway. Both hands clutch at her knees, knuckles white with the force of her grasp. Even from down the hallway he can hear her wheezing breaths faintly, see the desperate rise and fall of her chest as her body heaves for air. 

“Scully…” 

Coming closer, he notices her wide-eyed stare fixed on a point over his shoulder. Looking back, the spackled bullet holes come in to focus, conspicuous due to the absence of paint. Fuck.

Moving his body in front of her, he blocks the view hoping that it will help snap her out of whatever is happening, but even as her eyes shift to his face they are still glazed over with tears and terror. Her mouth moves, seemingly trying to form words but nothing comes out other than choked gasps from the back of her throat. 

Realizing that it’s probably not helping that she still on the floor, Mulder reaches out and gently grabs her biceps, pulling her up to her feet. She falls into his chest heavily, bursting into body wracking sobs that get muffled when she buries her face into his shirt, but shuffles along as he moves them from the hallway into the kitchen, stopping briefly in the living room to grab a throw off the couch. 

His plan was to put her to sit in a chair and then pull up one for himself but the grip she has on his shirt makes him think twice. Instead, he sits and pulls her into his lap, wrapping the fleecy throw over her shoulders. Her hands are curled into tight fists sandwiched between their bodies, just below her hot forehead pressed rigidly into his chest. Grabbing both hands, he unfurls them, resting her open palms on chest. She is still tense in his arms, and all he can think to do is rock her back and forth.

They sit for a while, the only sounds in her apartment made by the rustle of fabric from their motions and the steadily decreasing pants escaping her lungs.

Guilt sat heavily in his chest. And having the guilt made him feel guilty because this was about her, not about him.

Part of him wished he had forced her off the case from the start, or that he turned down the assignment before even running it past her. The larger part of him knew that she would have resented him for both decisions, seeing his attempt to protect as a sign that he judged her as weak, fragile. That he didn’t respect her autonomy. That he didn’t trust her as an agent or as a partner.

He can’t help but think that this was destined to happen. Orison had set Pfaster free, placing him on a path that unfortunately led directly to Scully.

“Thank you.” The watery sound of her voice makes his heart ache. Her breathing has slowed to normal and the hands that were pressing into his chest now rest there lightly. 

Desperately, he searches his mind, wanting to say something quickly, anything that might make her feel more at ease, and decides that it might be helpful just to check in on her mental state.

“Are you okay?” Even at a whisper, his voice feels too loud for the quietness of the apartment.

“Yes. I think I’m all right now.” She is quiet for a few moments, but he stays silent, sensing that there is more that needs to be said.

“I didn’t expect this to happen. I was fine until I got to my room and then I couldn’t walk in, so I turned around and leaned on the wall just to breathe for a moment. But when I saw the – the…” Face still pressed into his chest; she takes a deep breath as if to steady herself. “When I saw the bullet holes I kind of just lost it. By the time I thought to call out for you, I could barely breathe.” She raises a hand and traces a finger along the collar of his t-shirt.

“He scared me. Again. But this time he came into my space and…defiled it.” Another deep breath. “Defiled me. He was evil, down to his very core, and in the moments right after I shot him, I wondered… worried that that evil had passed on to me. That it was inside me now.” His heart ached, upset that she could ever think that about herself, could even consider herself in the same category as someone as vile as Donnie Pfaster. 

“But I was doing okay, you know? I think that somewhere between the car ride to your apartment and later that night when we got into bed, I realized that the fact that I was even questioning my motives was proof that I wasn’t like him at all.” 

Even though she can’t see him—her face still tucked against his body—he nods in agreement. Still, he keeps quiet, afraid that any interruption would stop her from speaking. This was the most she’s spoken of her inner thoughts and feelings related to a negative experience and he doesn’t want her to stop. The last time he remembers her being this open was during the Boggs case, back when she was still young and a touch naïve, before she had built up the sky-high walls that defended her vulnerabilities.

“When we went back to your apartment, and even the day after I felt okay with what I did, with the life I took. And then I had that dream. I don’t really remember what happened, but I know it was terrifying.” She takes a pause, then presses on.

“And even though I know it’s crazy, all I could think of was that I hope that spirits, ghosts, whatever you want to call them don’t exist. Because that would mean he would be here with Melissa.”

"I don’t think that's crazy," he whispers into her hair.

She chuffs, "No, of course you wouldn’t." Her tone is good-natured, and he's glad he seems to have said the right thing. As opposed to normal, his strange beliefs seem to be a comfort to her rather than an annoyance.

“I was so glad you were there.” She finally looks up, meeting his eye. “I’m glad you are here now.”

The fear that was etched across her face previously is gone and even through the redness and puffiness of her eyes, there is only one thing he sees in her gaze: trust. He smiles and pats the back of her head when she closes her eyes and presses the side of her face to his shoulder.

“Do you want to leave and come back another day?” he asks after a minute or two of stillness.

“No,” she says on a sigh and her body sinks even further into his. He could tell that exhaustion was starting to take hold of her. “Can we stay sitting for a little while longer?”

He nods, squeezing her in close, hoping that she was taking just as much comfort from being in his arms as he was from holding her. He doesn’t say it, but he would sit here with her for hours, years if that’s what she needed. She was safe and she was with him, she felt comfortable enough with him to open up, to reveal that vulnerable side that was so carefully hidden from the world. She trusted him. It was more than he could ever wish for.

“Just know that I’ll be here for whatever you need me for. I’m right here with you.”


End file.
